Daejarn Asi had a brilliant debut for the Warriors, playing a chief role in two tries to keep his side in the game, before a Shaun Johnson field goal in Golden Point got the Warriors home 21-20 over Canberra in Redcliffe today.
Arguably the two worst performing sides of the previous round went head-to-head at Redcliffe with one of them set to redeem themselves while the other would undoubtedly find themselves under more pressure.
Both sides played with too much ill-discipline in the first half, preventing either outfit to build pressure or momentum. It was the Raiders though who managed to score first when Jack Wighton put Matthew Timoko through a weak tackle effort to score. Brad Schneider converted to give the Raiders a 6-0 lead after 8 minutes.
Schneider added a penalty goal in the 15th minute after a string of Warriors penalties.
The Warriors got on the board in the 25th minute when Jordan Rapana fielded a bomb, then threw a long ball to Nick Cotric, where it bounced up, but Cotric knocked it on and the Warriors cleaned up. From the next play the Warriors went left where Euan Aitken got a good ball out to Adam Pompey who scored in the corner. Reece Walsh converted from touch.
From the restart, Addin Fonua-Blake dropped the ball. The Raiders then got a set restart shortly after. From the ensuing set they produced some nice second phase play which resulted in Hudson Young straightening his run and beating the defence to score near the sticks. Schneider converted.
In the 31st minute, Daejarn Asi put in a lovely chip which Jordan Rapana looked set to clean up, but he slipped and Viliami Vailea got a nice bounce, regathered and scored. Walsh converted.
Four minutes before halftime, Jack Wighton went on a run as second receiver, fended off one defender, bumped out of a tackle and palmed off a third to score a soft try. Schneider again converted. At halftime the Raiders lead 20-12.
The second half was quite simply a mess of dropped ball, bad passes and ill-discipline.
It was until the 63rd minute before the scoring continued when Asi dropped a lovely short ball in the line into the hard running Aitken, who strolled through the vacant Raiders defence and he scored under the posts. Walsh converted to reduce the Warriors deficit to just 2 points.
A high tackle by Corey Horsburgh on Matt Lodge in the 78th minute, allowed Walsh to level the scores with a penalty goal, sending the game into golden point.
A Tom Starling forward pass in the first set of extra time gave the Warriors a full set inside the Raiders 35 metres. Shaun Johnston then stepped Horsburgh to comfortably slot the match winning field goal.